Lots of Love to Give

On this Valentine’s Day, as I sit here putting together my weekly update, I want to take a moment to send some love. It’s been a rough start for the year and will likely continue to be rough for a lot of people. So, I’m sending you all some love and wishing you joy.

ANNOUNCEMENTS!

The Drowning Gull has accepted three collaborative poems from Laura Madeline Wiseman and myself. Looking forward to seeing them published.

What I’m Reading

I finished some actual books last week! Woo! Now I’m just on Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman, a sequel to the amazing Seraphina, the story involves dragons and war and half-dragons seeking each other out.

What I’m Writing

I actually found myself avoiding the Twelve chapbook that I intended to work on. As I sat down to work on it, I felt in my gut the need to let it sit a little longer, giving my brain more of a break before launching into editing it again. It can be good to allow this kind of space (if you have the time), so that you can approach it fresh.

So, instead I found myself taking a look at other poems needing some editing and even tried to convert a Frankenstein poem into a sestina — which fell apart halfway through, but I’ll come back to sometime this week.

In addition to actual writing and editing work, I’ve been in the submission-rejection-submission cycle. I’ve been skipping right over the sorrow stage and making sure to send out work again as soon as the rejections come in. It’s kind of fun actually, like hot potato-ing my poems right back out the door.

Goals for the Week:

Get three poems edited

Hot potato my submissions to at least two more journals/publishers

The Running Life

Longest Run of the Week: 3.35 miles Total Miles for the Week: 3.35 miles

Total Miles for 2017: 29.27 miles

Last week was a bit stressful in terms of the day job while we were getting the magazine to press. Because of that — combined with the fact that I did two strength training sessions instead of my usual one — I chose to take my Tuesday and Thursday morning runs off in order to get a fraction more rest.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, sun and cool — just the right weather for a good run. I managed 3.35 miles, with a minimal amount of walking in between, and felt great afterwards. Although, my goal this week is to get my long weekend run up to 4 miles.

Then on Sunday, I tripped on the sidewalk and fell hard. I didn’t injure myself — at least not any more than a few bruises and aches — but the fall left a bit shaky. I thought about doing a run or even a walk to work some of the feeling out, but opted to let my body rest that day instead.

Linky Goodness

Sarah MacLean on why Bashing Romance Novels Is Just Another Form Of Slut-Shaming: “I don’t defend the genre anymore. Instead, I bite my tongue, because I’m more polite than most of these people, and it would be rude to say what I’d really like to say, which is: ‘What’s your problem with women and sex?'”